从总裁到总统--德国新总统科勒

5月23日,德国反对党联盟党和自民党共同推举的总统候选人、国际货币基金组织前总裁霍斯特·科勒击败现执政党社民党和绿党的候选人、大学教授格西内·施万,当选为战后德国第9任总统.科勒已于7月1日宣誓就职,任期5年.     

The public board as public administration (and citizens as administrative participants)

Service on public boards is described in a normative model of public administration. Further, public boards, such as the historic architectural review boards discussed here, provide unique oppportunities for students of government and public administration. The public board serves an important balance within the local government. Public boards provide expertise not easily purchased by government; public boards provide an important interface for citizens to their elected government and their career public administration; and public boards provide an important opportunity for citizens to involve themselves with their government. This citizen as administrative participant is not typically schooled in government or in public administration, but an opportunity exists for aggressive public administration programs.     

Reportlng of performance measures for federal agencies: the initial impact of the chief financial officer act of 1990

The Chief Financial Officer Act of 1990 requires the preparation and audit of financial statements for many federal government programs and agencies. The first comprehensive set of financial statements prepared to meet the provisions of the CFO Act were for the fiscal year ended September 30, 1991 and were published in CFO Annual Reports due in August of 1992. This paper presents the results of a study of performance measurement in the fiscal year 1991 financial statements of the sixty-three reporting entities filed as part of the 1992 CFO Annual Reports. The purpose of the analysis of performance measures included in the fiscal year 1991 financial statements was to determine to what extent the financial statements of each of the reporting entities included the various types of performance measures identified in the framework developed for this project. The paper also includes an in-depth analysis of the performance measures reprted by the Social Security Administration and the Department of Labor.     

State urban enterprise zones: origin,policy context,and administrative constraints

This article examines the origins of state enterprise zone policies. Further, the range of state enterprise zones are reviewed, drawing out patterns and generalizations of implementing this type of revitalization policy. As part of this analysis President Reagan urban policy is analyzed as to its effect on state programs. Lastly, the article analyzes three important obstacles - labor, incentives, and politics - that state and local administrators must negotiate to successfully implement the enterprise zone policy.     

The administrative staff college at henley-on-thames

An analysis of the administrative staff concept approach to management education in England as exemplified in the General Management Course of and Administrative Staff College at Henley-on-Thames, which the author attended as a “staff observer.” The philosophy, objectives and learning methods that have made the College an outstanding example of successful overseas management training are explained and, to the extent possible, evaluated.     

The administrative legacy of ancient India

Marx and Weber considered ancient Asian bureaucracies as irrelevant for the modern world. But one important element of the Indian bureaucratic legacy namely, the district overlord or collector, was taken over by the British and instituted all over their Asian and African possessions. It still forms the foundation of field administration in all these countries after independence. This paper traces the textual origins of centralized Indian bureaucracy in Kautilya's Arthasastra, its dilution over the centuries due to the failure of imperial integration in India, compared to its success in China and the survival of the district overlord institution which the British resuscitated and modernized. The paper also speculates about the reasons for the failure of Marx and Weber to interpret or predict Indian development.     

美国五角大楼的新主人:罗伯特·盖茨

2006年美国中期选举,民主党以绝对优势将国会参众两院收入囊中,导致的最直接后果就是布什为了平息朝野上下对其伊拉克政策的怨气,不得已弃卒保车,让国防部长拉姆斯菲尔德在第一时间宣布辞职.11月8日,罗伯特·盖茨被布什总统提名为新任国防部长,12月6日以95比2的压倒性多数票通过参议院全体会议批准,12月18日宣誓就职.这位曾是美国中央情报局历史上最年轻局长的盖茨,在远离华盛顿政治中心长达13年之后,一经登场亮相,就再度成为焦点人物.     

Evaluating public policy: The administrative role

If public administrators are not heavily involved from the beginning in the development of public policy, policy implementation and program evaluation may not be possible. The tasks and people needed for organizing policy change are identified and the roles of the public administrator in these efforts are discussed. This article describes three legislative efforts in which public administrators were heavily involved at the beginning stages of policy development; administrators helped to create programs that were subsequently more amenable to evaluation.     

Historical change and the administrative state: An analysis of the theoretical foundations of public administration

This article offers an explanation for the theoretical underdevelopment of Public Administration. It argues that Public Administration studies the relations among elements of the administrative state and between the administrative state and its environment dissociated from time. The ahistorical orientation of the discipline has drastically reduced its capacity for theory building.     

The layfield report: Financial and administrative implications

REPORT OF THE (LAYFIELD) COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY INTO LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE, £5.75, pp. 494, HMSO, 1976.     

The romantic vision in american administrative theory: Retrospectives and prospectives

The 1980s witnessed an explosion of new theoretical approaches for public administration. This essay explores the intellectual basis and orientation of several of these “new” approaches. It argues that many share distinctly common outlooks and values which the author terms, “a romantic vision” for the field, that is opposite to rational “classicalism.” This current wave of romantic philosophy mainly has historic roots in the Minnow brook perspectives of the late 1960s and early 1970s but “flowers” today in quite diverse schools under new names such as critical theory, phenomenology, new public administration and many others. All share common romantic values and outlooks. Several intellectual dilemmas for public administration posed by the rise of romanticism are outlines in this essay.     

The effectiveness of network administrative organizations in governing interjurisdictional natural resources

Can network administrative organizations (NAOs) improve networks' ability to solve complex social and environmental problems? This is a classical question in collaborative governance. The public management literature examines collaborative outcomes at either the organization or the entire network level, but has not addressed “edge level” outcomes to evaluate structured interactions among network actors. Therefore, we investigate outcomes in an interjurisdictional area that reflect collaborative efforts between local governments. Recently, Guangdong Province in China enacted the River Chief System, an institutional reform that mandates the provincial government to establish an NAO to coordinate intercity rivers' management. To assess how well the reform has worked to reduce pollution, we employ the synthetic control method using monthly water quality data from 14 river monitoring sites in two neighboring cities. Our results indicate that the reform reduced the interjurisdictional river sites' pollution level effectively by 36% in the following year. This preliminary finding contributes to the collaborative governance theory and provides new evidence on whether the NAO model improves the shared outcomes between local governments.     

The impending crisis in development administration

Two questions are posed about development administration theory and practice. Does it offer apparent, plausible solutions to the recent and current crises of developing countries? Is it based upon a knowledge of the organizational terms and conditions which are necessary to advance human welfare? Current theory and practice are found to be wanting in both respects. An emphasis on comparative institutional analysis is suggested as one potential remedy for these weaknesses.     

The adaptation of Taiwan's administrative organizations to its economic development

Since moving its seat to Taiwan in 1949, the government of the Republic of China has been able to resume its efforts towards national reconstruction on this island at an accelerated speed. Because of rapid political, economic, and social developments in recent decades, Taiwan's political environment is quite different from what it was previously. In changing from continental to island, national to local, and agricultural to industrial, the public's demands have changed significantly. Under Taiwan's current political and economic situation, what course of development should Taiwan's administrative organizations follow? What kind of self- adaptation to this changing environment should Taiwan's administrative system take? This article describes Taiwan's current administrative environment and operation from a physical and cultural setting. Its ways of adaptation are examined as well must be reasonable and rational. Restated, measures to change the quality of governmental services, governmental expense, the taxes the citizens pay, and the services citizens receive should be taken rationally (¹).     

Cream-skimming at the frontline: The role of administrative literacy

The notion of cream-skimming—defined as the propensity to prioritize clients who have a higher likelihood of meeting bureaucratic success criteria, including organizational goals—is at the heart of street-level bureaucracies. However, there is often no direct information available to street-level bureaucrats whether clients will actually meet bureaucratic success criteria. This study argues that street-level bureaucrats assess clients' potential to reach these criteria via their administrative literacy—a client's capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic information and services from public administrations—as displayed in social interactions. Therefore, this study elaborates on the role of clients' administrative literacy and its effects on cream-skimming behavior. Using data from two experiments, we show that public employees prioritize clients with higher levels of preparedness and effective communication strategies. These findings suggest that cream-skimming is not just a rational cost–benefit analysis, but strongly influenced by social dynamics within public encounters.     

The process of professionalization and the rebuilding of administrative ethics in post-MAO China

The process of professionalization for Chinese administration is in essence one that is shifting from the Party's cadres to the civil servants of the state, from a revolutionary clique with a special mission to a professional administrative group serving the general interest of the society. As a revolutionary clique existing under the Party's leadership for a long time, it was characterized by “traditional features,” such as not being open to all citizens, politics overwhelming administration, management based on personal style rather than professional norms, etc. These features, to a large degree, produced a corresponding administrative attitude, ethics and behavior, which include a sense of “paternal official,” self-discipline, adoring personalized authority. They in turn support the traditional system with both positive and negative consequences.

The economic reform provided the impetus for changing the traditional system, and new framework with a strange civil service emerged, with such professional characteristics as opening jobs up to the whole society, respect for law and regulation, management and promotion based on merit, etc. However, the negative side of the economic reform has hindered the further development of professionalization. In particular, corruption and negligence of administrative ethics have undermined the new system. Further professionalization needs a spirit provided by rebuilding public administration: changing ideology and attitude, innovating institutions, and reforming the culture.     

Leadership and innovation in the administrative state

The field of public administration, as well as the social science upon which it is based, has given little serious attention to the importance of vigorous leadership by career as well as non-career public administrators. The field tends to focus on the rigidities of political behavior and the obstacles to change. To reclaim an understanding of the importance of individual leadership the author suggests the use of biography and life history. The behavior and personality of the entrepreneur is an especially helpful perspective on the connection between leadership and organizational or institutional innovation. The case of Julius Henry Cohen, who played a pivotal role in the development of the New York Port Authority, is used to illustrate the connection between the entrepreneurial personality or perspective and innovation.

In the social sciences—and especially in the study of American political institutions—primary attention is given to the role of interest groups and to bureaucratic routines and other institutional processes that shape the behavior of executive agencies and legislative bodies. In view of the powerful and sustained pressures from these forces, the opportunities for leadership—to create new programs, to redirect individual agencies and broad policies, and to make a measurable impact in meeting social problems—are very limited. At least this is the message, implicit and often explicit, in the literature that shapes the common understanding of the professional scholar and the educated layperson in public affairs.⁽¹⁾ For administrative officials, captured (or cocooned) in the middle—or even at the top—of large bureaucratic agencies, the prospects for “making a difference” seem particularly unpromising. In his recent study of federal bureau chiefs, Herbert Kaufman expresses this view with clarity:… The chiefs did not pour out important decisions in a steady stream. Days sometimes went by without any choice of this kind emerging from their offices … If you need assurance that you labors will work enduring changes on policy of administrative behavior, you would do well to look elsewhere. ⁽²⁾

There are, of course, exceptions to these dominant patterns in the literature. In particular, political scientists and other scholars who study the American presidency or the behavior of other national leaders often treat these executives and their aides as highly significant actors in creating and reshaping public programs and social priorities. ⁽³⁾ However, based on a review of the literature and discussions with more than a dozen colleagues who teach in political science and related fields, the themes sketched out above represent with reasonable accuracy the dominant view in the social sciences.

The scholarly field of public administration is part of the social sciences, and the generalizations set forth above apply to writings in that field as well.⁽⁴⁾ (Indeed, Kaufman's book on federal bureau chiefs won the Brownlow Award, as the most significant volume in public administration in the year it was published.) Similarly, the argument regarding scholarly writing in the social sciences can be extended to the texts and books of reading used in courses in political science and public administration; what is in the scholarly works and the textbooks influences how we design our courses and what messages we convey in class. The provisional conclusion here, then, is that in courses as well as in writings the public administration field gives little attention to the importance of vigorous leadership—by career as well as noncareer administrators. Neither does it give much attention to the strategies of leadership that are available to overcome intellectual and political obstacles which impede the development and maintenance of coalitions which support innovative policies and programs.⁽⁵⁾

The further implication is that students learn from what we teach, directly and indirectly. Students who might otherwise respond enthusiastically to the opportunities and challenges of working on important social programs learn mainly from educators that there are many obstacles to change and that innovations tend to go awry.⁽⁶⁾ And there the education often stops, and the students go elsewhere, to the challenges of business or of law. Those students who remain to listen seem to be those more attracted to the stability of a career in budgeting or personnel management. Public administration needs these people, but not them alone. If career officials should have an active role in governance and if the general quality of the public service is to be raised, does it not require a wider range of young people entering the service—including those who are risk-takers, those who seek in working with others the exercise of “large powers”?

Taken as a class, or at least in small and middle-sized groups, scholars in the fields of public administration and political science tend to be optimistic in their outlook on the world. Informally, in talking with their colleagues, they tend to convey a sense that public agencies can do things better than the private sector, and they sometimes serve (even without pay) on task forces and advisory bodies that attempt to improve the “output” of specific programs and agencies and that at times make some modest steps in that direction. Why, then, do public administration writings and courses tend to dwell so heavily on the rigidities of political behavior and the obstacles to change?

One reason may be our interest, as social scientists, in being “scientific.” We look for recurring patterns in the complex data of political and administrative life, and these regularities are more readily found in the behavior of interest groups and in the structures of bureaucratic cultures and routines. The role of specific leaders, and perhaps the role of leadership generally, do not as easily lend themselves to generalization and prediction.

Perhaps at some deeper level we are attracted to pathology, inclined to dwell on the negative messages of political life and to emphasize weakness and failures when the messages are mixed. Here, perhaps more than elsewhere, the evidence is impressionistic. ⁽⁷⁾

Some of the concerns noted above—about the messages conveyed to students and to others—have been expressed by James March in a recent essay on the role of leadership. He doubts that the talents of specific individual managers are the controlling influences in the way organizations behave. He, however, questions whether we should embrace an alternative view—a perspective that describes administrative action in terms of “loose coupling, organized anarchy, and garbage-can decision processes.” That theory, March argues, “appears to be uncomfortably pessimistic about the significance of administrators. Indeed, it seems potentially pernicious even if correct.” Pernicious, because the administrator who accepts that theory would be less inclined to try to “make a difference” and would thereby lose some actual opportunities to take constructive action.⁽⁸⁾

March does not, however, conclude that the “organized anarchy” theory is correct. He is now inclined to believe that a third theory is closer to the truth. Administrators do affect the ways in which organizations function. The key variable in an organization that functions well is having a “density of administrative competence” rather than “having an unusually gifted individual at the top.” How does an organization come to have a cluster of very able administrators—a density of competence—so that the team can reach out vigorously and break free from the web of loose coupling and organized anarchy? Here March provides only hints at the answer. It happens, he suggests, by selection procedures that bring in able people and by a structure of motivation “that leads all managers to push themselves to the limit. “⁽⁹⁾     

Tipping the scales: The causes and consequences of administrative spending

The public administration literature once devoted great effort to identify the determinants of administrative intensity in organizations. While this literature has received some renewed attention, there remain questions about what aspects of organizational environments generate growth in administrative intensity, particularly as related to political oversight and external accountability mechanisms. This article aims to expand current theory on the determinants of administrative personnel and costs using data on four‐year public universities in the United States from 1998 to 2011, as this setting has received considerable criticism for perceived administrative bloat. Findings suggest that which political party is in control substantially influences both administrative costs and total personnel. These administrative levels, in turn, have a curvilinear relationship with student outcomes.